


JAfif J , /s.. 



^^^ ATION'S IDEAL 

Why We Were Neutral 

and 

Why We Are Now At War 



Address befort- 

University City Club 

St. Louis, Mo. 

October 23, 1917 

by 

CAMPBELL ALLISON 

of the 
ST. LOUIS BAR 



ror 



A NATION'S IDEAL 

Why We Were Neutral 

and 

Why We Are Now At War 



Address before 

University City Club 

St. Louis, Mo. 

October 23, 1917 

by 

CAMPBELL ALLISON 

of the 

ST. LOUIS BAR 



FLEMING PRINTING CO., St. Louis, Mo. 
All Rights Reserved 



Mr. Chairman: — Almost from the 1)eginning of time, 
two g-reat principles of government among men have 
struggled for supreniacy. The one system claiming the 
divine right of kings to rule by military force. The other 
system claiming the divine right of self government. 

These two systems of government are now engaged 
in a war of extermination. One will survive, and the 
other perish. Eventually the world will be ruled by 
democracy or by one central military autocracy. Those 
of our people, who keep abreast of the world's events, 
fullv understand that the vital issue of this war is the 
destiny of humanity. 

The great mass of our people — the Nobility of 
America; the artisan at his l)ench. the merchant at his 
counter, the housewife in her kitchen, the man with 
the hoe, don't bother much about the real causes of the 
war. It is enough for them that their country is at war. 
They are always patriotic; they are born that way. 
A\'hile the Government was neutral, thev preached 
neutrality. AVhen war was declared, they went after 
the Kaiser. Their motto always: "My Country; may 
she always be right. But right or wrong, my Country." 
God bless them. They made this Government, and they 
can change it if they want to. and they give freely of 
their lives, their fortunes and sacred honor. 

"Theirs not to ((uestion why 
"Theirs Init to make reply 
"Theirs but to do and die 

when their Country calls." 

But we have another class ; the "Show me" people, 
and they are not all from Missouri either. Their read- 
ing confined to newspaper headlines ; their views of this 
war are gathered largely from the remarks of their 
companions. Having heard the agitator, the thought- 
less idler or the German spy declare "Wilson kept us 
out of war until after election," "We went into war to 
save our loans to the Allies." "Tt is a rich man's war for 



profits," they half beHeve it is true, and are indifferent, 
and are willing to "Let George do it." 

If these people could be made to fully understand the 
real reason why, for more than two and a half years we 
kept out of war; why we suddenly threw aside our neu- 
trality, and entered into it with our whole heart, a suffi- 
cient volunteer army could be immediately raised, and 
its equipment would become a national holiday. Those 
of us, denied the privilege of going to the front, can do 
yeoman service at home, by reaching after these people ; 
by going to them in their shops and homes and explain- 
ing fully how the progress of Prussia's military ambition 
became a menace to the democracy in America. 

Democracy means the right of the people to govern 
themselves. It follows that if the people of Germany 
desire to be governed by military autocracy, in which 
they have no voice, it is their undoubted right to be so 
governed. It also follows that so long as the Govern- 
ment of Germany is content with governing people who 
are willing to be governed by it, democracy makes no 
protest. But it follows, as night, the day, that if the 
German Government, having conceived the idea of a 
world empire by military force, with Berlin its capital, 
and finds itself in a position to realize its ambition, it 
is our sacred duty to interfere, else government by the 
people must perish. 

Prussia's war spirit is not of recent origin. Caesar 
paid tribute to the fierce and warlike disposition of the 
Teutons. Mirabou said, "The soil of Prussia produces 
veg'etation by cultivation, but produces war spontane- 
ously." Napoleon said that Prussians are hatched out 
of cannon balls. The father of Frederick the Great 
created the real cause of this war by organizing the 
standing army system, by which practically ever}^ man 
in his kingdom became a soldier, so efficient that he 
could fire five shots to -three of any other. 

It was this system which enabled his son, Frederick 
the Great, (1740) to take possession of Silesia, before 
Austria or France could interfere. He kept Silesia, and 
made it Prussian. Frederick the Great tried through 
the "Furstenl^und" and otherwise to organize the Ger- 



man States about him into a war machine with which 
to crush his enemies. Failing in this, in 1772, he, with 
Austria, forcibly dismembered Poland, annexing the 
German portion thereof, which now constitutes West 
Prussia. 

It remained for Prussia, under the "Iron Rule of 
Bismarck" to accomplish the forcible amalgamation of 
the German States. At the close of the Austrian War 
in 1866, she took military possession of Hanover and 
the North German States which had not aided her in 
war. She extended to Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemberg 
and the more powerful Rhine Provinces, their choice 
between war and coalition. They feared Prussia, but 
they feared war more, and came into the Confederation 
of German States. 

Out of this most unwilling union, conceived in fear, 
was afterwards born the "Empire of blood and iron,'" 
improperly christened, "The German Empire," for it 
was thoroughly Prussian from core to circumference. 

Immediately there began a systematic assimilation 
of the old German thought, character and disposition, 
into the w^ar spirit of Prussia. The classic literature of 
Schiller and Goethe was pushed aside, and effusions, 
reeking with the arrogant idea that the Teuton is a 
superior race, destined by the Almighty to rule the 
world, paid for a public expense, were preached from 
the pulpit and school room. The philosophy of Hegel 
and Emmanuel Kent were made to give way to a mili- 
tary philosophy, which seeks to justify the complete 
destruction of outside populations as giving the Teuton 
Race more room to grow in the world. Her contribu- 
tion to the literature and philosophy of the world has 
not kept pace with her progress in the art of war and 
the chemistry of high explosives. 

The melodies of Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner, and 
the Wedding March of Mendelssohn, seem strangely out 
of harmony with the war spirit of the new Empire. "Die 
Wacht am Rhein" fitted more naturally into its mili- 
tary cadence. 

The old German ideals, the ideals that loved their 
fellowman : the ideals, honored and respected by the 



entire world, the ideal so fitly expressed in the great 
bulk of our citizens of German birth and descent, all 
passed beneath, completely obsessed in the merciless 
Sfreed of Prussia's military ambition. Like : 



Who tried to ride a tiger, 

Returning from the ride 

The lady was inside 

And a smile on the face of the tiger. 

The Empire having given Prussia military supremacy ; 
bound to her the ties of blood and kindred ambition, her 
relations with Austria ceased to be war. They became 
politics. Her system of assimilation was applied to her 
ancient enemy. The Hapsburgs found themselves un- 
able to cope with the Hohenzollerns when the game was 
statescraft. Superior cunning and a dominant disposi- 
tion prevailed. Prussian diplomacy became the real 
power ■ behind the throne — Austria the real vassal 
of Germany. Alliance with Austria thus secured, (1879) 
her military strength vastly increased thereby; Prussia 
looked worldward for a wider field for her military am- 
bition. 

Alexander the Great is said to have wept because 
there were no more worlds for him to conquer. Prus- 
sia had no occasion to weep. A world empire, with 
Berlin its capital, and the ancient glories of Rome and 
Carthage would fade by comparison. The plan re- 
quired high daring and low diplomacy. Prussia was 
well supplied with both. No occasion to Hooverize the 
latter especially. 

The contiguous territory about her was necessary for 
her plan. She proceeded to acquide it with military 
precision. Even before the empire was formed, for no 
other reason than that she had the power, and wanted 
the territory, for one purpose, to construct the Kiel 
Canal, a part of her military plan. (1866) she took 
forcible possession of Schleswig-Holstein. half the ter- 
ritory of Denmark, and proceeded to thoroughly Prus- 
sionize it. 



In 1870, by deceiving- the German people, just as they 
are being today deceived as to the real cause of the war; 
by basely concealing the true purport of the Ems tele- 
gram, and pretending that the same contained a threat 
of France to make war, she secured the co-operation of 
the German people, in a merciless war for conquest, 
upon France, and took away the province of Alsace- 
Lorraine. These she proceeded to Prussianize sys- 
tematically. 

In 1882, she forced Italy into a "Triple Alliance," 
whereby her army and navy were added to the military 
strength "of Prussia. 

AMiile acting as one of the pawn brokers for the 
Balkan States, she shrewdly permitted her ally, Aus- 
tria, from time to time, to annex such thereof as best 
suited their interests. Dalmatria, Istria, Trieste and 
Croatia were unwillingly added to her military strength. 
As late as 1908, when the growing spirit of Balkan 
independence was seriously threatening a successful 
revolution against the murderous tyranny of Turkey, 
Emperor Franz Joseph, in violation of his contract, but 
with the secret approval of Germany, laconically an- 
nounced to the world, the annexation of Bosnia and 
Herzgovinia, and the placing upon the throne of Al- 
bania, a king of Prussian choice. Thus was all hope of 
Balkan independence destroyed, but about three and 
one-half millions of people unwillingly added to the 
military strength of Prussia. 

The inference is justified, that by guaranteeing to the 
Sultan of Turkey the unmolested privilege of massacre- 
ing the Christians in Armenia and elsewdiere at his 
pleasure ; by agreeing that German Officers would feign 
conversion to Mohammedan faith, and add German 
Kultur to the fanatical cruelties of Turkish warfare, she 
was able to conclude an unholy alliance with this plague 
spot of the world, by which her military influence was 
extended over Asia Minor, even to the western border 
of Persia. Thus, by military efficiency alone, against 
the people's will, Prussia has grown from an insignificant 
province on the bleak coast of the Baltic, into the Im- 



8 

perial Empire of Germany, and her military influence 
has been extended over Europe and Western Asia. 

At the beginning of this war, her mihtary dominion 
embraced the entire heart of Europe, and extended from 
the North sea and the Bahic sea clear through to Bag- 
dad and the Indian Ocean. In all this vast acquired ter- 
ritory, government by military force was supreme, the 
will of the people ignored, and their interests considered 
only when the same were not in conflict with the para- 
mount interests of the German States. 

AVe looked with indifTerence upon this rapid growth 
of military power. It was European pohtics. How 
could it harm us ? Our freedom seemed secure. The 
great ocean rolled between the Land of the Free and 
the home of military oppression. The precepts of the 
lowly Nazarene : "Do unto others as you would have 
them do unto you," seemed so firmly rooted in the con- 
science of the world, that war of mere conquest seemed 
no longer possible. Hence the Prussian scheme of 
world domination, seemed too gigantic and too colossal 
to be taken seriously. We looked upon it as an irides- 
cent dream, destined to fade in the Hght of practical ex- 
perience, and we saw in the growing power of Prussia, 
no menace to democracy in America. 

We even viewed, with amusement, the daring cun- 
ning with which the German Government, seemingly 
entered into the spirit in which the nations of the world 
preached the gospel of peace and disarmament; saw her 
assist in the creation of Hague Tribunals for the settle-' 
ment of international difficulties, which would make war 
imnecessary. Yet, while the nations of the earth were 
beating their swords into plow shares, permitting the 
Dove of Peace to nest in their cannon mouths the Im- 
perial Government of Germany, with Michavillian du- 
plicity, was building up the greatest military system the 
world has ever known, and secretly equipping it with 
hitherto unheard of machinery of destruction. 

Even when we knew that she had begun this unholy 
war, begun it for the sole reason that her plan was ma- 
tured, the time ripe; she was fully prepared, the rest of 
the world was unprepared ; begun it in the cold calculat- 



ing conviction that having once crushed France, she 
could subdue England while she was yet unprepared, 
we were still unwilling to believe in the existence of a 
design, on the part of the German Government, to crush 
democracy in the world. One hundred years of peace 
had not sufficed to entirely eradicate, from the minds 
of our people, the memory of our war for independence 
with our English cousins. Many of our people believed, 
honestly believed the absurd claim of Prussia that the 
war had been thrust upon her; that she was fighting for 
the Fatherland. 

We were a nation of peace lovers. We remembered 
what Washington had said about entangling European 
alliances ; we kept ourselves aloof from the struggle, 
tried to maintain a dignified neutrality. It was a cruel 
and unnecessary war. W^e didn't quite understand 
what it was all about. It seemed to us like a war for 
commerce, between England and Germany; but it 
wasn't our war. AVe refused still to see, in the ultimate 
triumph of Prussian militar}^ autocracy, any real danger 
to democracy at home. 

When the Lusitania was sunk, our wrath w^as aroused, 
but a cool head was in control. The vessel belonged 
to a belligerent nation, actually engaged in war with 
Germany. Outside the four-mile limit from our shores, 
her decks afforded no greater indemnity from attack, 
than did so much of the soil of England itself. On the 
other hand, it was a coward's act, and richly merited 
war. Opinions were divided. The question was close. 
A\'e finally gave Germany the benefit of the doubt, and 
counseled neutrality and peace. 

When the Sussex and the Frye were torpedoed, we 
accepted the apology, grudgingly given, and in the 
spirit of Him who said: "If thine enemy smite thee on 
the one cheek, turn to him the other," we counseled 
peace and moderation. 

When Bernstorfif, the consular representative of the 
German Government, betrayed his sacred trust, filled 
our land with spies, aided and abetted the destruction 
of our factories and the murder of our citizens, sought 
to involve us in a w^ar with Mexico and Japan, we talked 



10 

as people talk, who care alone for peace and the profits 
on war contracts. 

When vessel after vessel of neutral nations had been 
sent to the bottom; vessels manned in part by Ameri- 
can sailors, vessels often carrying American mothers 
with American babies in their arms, ruthlessly tor- 
pedoed without warning, we protested to the German 
Government. But our protest was not in anger; not 
alone in the name of American Right, but in the name 
of humanity; and we willingly believed the promise of 
the German Government that in the future, she would 
conduct her naval warfare along the hnes of interna- 
tional law and respect the right of neutrals, and we re- 
joiced that the pen was mightier than the sword. 

But there came a time when peace talk was cowardice, 
and war became a necessity. We discovered that the 
promise of the German Government to respect the 
right of neutrals on the high seas, was a false promise, 
a mere subterfuge, made only for the purpose of getting 
a year's time in which to construct enough submarines 
to enable her to starve England and France into sub- 
jiiission. Such a fleet having been constructed, on 
January 30, 1917, she brazenly announced her inten- 
tion to resume unrestricted submarine warfare on the 
following morning. 

On the following morning, our Government was no 
longer confronted by a theory, as to the intention of Ger- 
many. It was face to face with a fact. France ex- 
hausted ; the resources of England strained to a break- 
ing test ; a submarine development that not only threat- 
ened the destruction of France and England, but able to 
cross the Atlantic and infest our coast like a swarm of 
huge leviathans of the deep, and against which our navy 
was next to helpless. The German system of espionage 
had been uncovered. It snielled to Heaven with human 
confidence basely betrayed. Boy-ed, Zimmerman and 
Bernstorff had been caught red handed. There existed, 
no longer, rational doubt that in the Prussian plan for 
world dominion, the detail of the dismemberment of the 
United States as a spoil of war had been already agreed 
upon. In the face of these facts, the deliberate announce- 



11 

ment of the German Government of her intention to re- 
sume unrestricted submarine warfare was a challenge to 
the world for world supremacy. 

Then the scales fell from our eyes. The mirage be- 
came a fact. World empire by force, with Berlin as its 
capital, was no longer a Prussian dream, but a present 
probability. The United States was the only barrier 
between Pan-Germania and its fullest realization. From 
Berlin to Bagdad was but a step in the way; from Cal- 
lais to London a shorter one ; Liverpool to New York, 
an easier one. The rainbow of the Prussian dream 
ended in the land too rich and too indolent to prepare 
for its own defense; William II, Emperor of the World, 
was the real goal of Prussian ambition. 

Then it was we understood, for the first time, why 
the solemn covenant she had made with Belgium was 
torn to pieces and contemptuously referred to as a 
mere scrap of paper. Ours would be treated likewise. 

We knew then that Belgium had been invaded, her 
manhood deported into slavery, her womanhood into 
a servedom worse than slavery, not because the same 
was a military necessity, Init in order that Belgium 
should become Prussian soil forever, just as Schleswig- 
Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine. Then we understood 
why the aged, the extreme young, the sick and infirm, 
the men too weak to work in the mines and factories 
of Germany, the women unserviceable were not de- 
ported. It cost less to destroy, than to feed them. We 
cast the veil of charity over Liege, Louverne and 
Cardinal Mercier, lest we forget. 

AA'e knew why hospitals had been fired upon, fre- 
c|uently, deliberately. German soldiers had been taught, 
that the Red Cross was an organization for torturing 
German Prisoners to death. But why were sky pilots 
rewarded with an iron cross for their braverv. their 
chivalry in killing English Babies? AA'hy was Edith 
Cavel shot ? 

We knew why the Lusitania, the Sussex and the Frve, 
with their priceless cargoes of American lives, had been 
ruthlessly sent to the bottom. But why were countless 
ships of neutral nations "Spurlos\'ersenkt"' (sunk with- 



12 

out leaving a trace) ? Why were ships of mercy, flying 
the Red Cross, bound from America with food and cloth- 
ing for suffering women and children sent to the bottom ; 
cold blooded murder on the high seas in the interest of the 
Imperial Government of Germany. 

These acts were done by men created in the image of 
God, with faces that wore the imprint of a kindly heart ; 
not willingly, we trust, but by stern orders of the Gov- 
ernment that dared not be disobeyed. How was the 
Imperial Government of Germany to be benefited by 
the wholesale murder of noncombatants, what military 
advantage resulted from the killing of innocent school 
children? Let us see. 

It has been said that Attela, the famous Hun of old, 
inspired such terror among the peasantry of Europe, 
that it was popular folklore that the grass would never 
grow again in a spot where his horse had trod. Un- 
willing to be outdone by the military splendor of their 
ancient kinsman, the Prussian Government, by these 
acts of vandalism, by these inhuman atrocities, was 
seeking to so terrorize the neutral nations of the world, 
that they would gladly submit to German Rule, rather 
than incur the horrors that would surely attend their 
refusal. 

It was to create a reign of terror in the world, that 
the German Government threw overboard the chart 
and compass of humanity and steered the ship of 
German State, alone by the light of poisoned gas and 
"Flamme warfer." 

It was that Germany might be feared, that she for- 
got God, and planned her faith wholly upon submarine 
assassination, the last word of kings. 

Then we knew that the government that could do 
these things, had no conscience ; that no sacred thing 
would be respected if it stood in the way of its ambition. 

Lincoln said, "This Government cannot live half free 
and half slave." and we who loved Lincoln, finally under- 
stood that government of the people and by the people 
could not longer endure in the world by the side of a 
government by the divine right of the king, if the king 
be mad from drunken thirst for military power. We 



13 

finally realized that if democracy should Hve in America, 
Prussian Military Autocracy must l)e destroyed in 
Europe. 

And we went into this war with clean hands, not in 
ang-er, not for revenge, because the Lusitania was sunk, 
but with deliberation. We went into war, not because 
Germany had denied us the right to walk in the high- 
ways of the commerce of the world without the per- 
mission of a Prussian Soldier, or because our ships were 
verboten to venture upon the high seas without wear- 
ing the badge of servitude. Not alone because she de- 
liberately planted mines in the neutral currents of the 
ocean, which destroyed our commerce, and murdered 
our sailors without warnings, lout because in her drunken 
arrogance Germany proposed to destroy democracy in 
the world, and was able to do it, unless we acted quickly 
and at once. W^e are fighting today upon the soil of 
France, a second war of American Independence, and 
our foe knows no God, but only the machine ])ower of 
military organization. 

A nation conceived in independency, a people, born 
with the inalienable right of self government, cannot 
but draw its sword on such provocations. To do other- 
wise would be cowardice. 

But justified as we are from these provocations, there 
is still anotlier reason why we are in this war. Our Na- 
tion's Ideal. Imperialism has ever blighted the cradle 
of the human race, as well as the continent of Europe. 
Self governments sprang up over there occasionally, but 
the soil and the environments were not conducive to 
their growth and development. The continent of 
America with its vastness, its fullness, was reserved as 
a sprouting bed for world's democracy. When our Gov- 
ernment was first ordained, the separation of the 
colonies from the Mother Country was all that was im- 
mediately desired. It was popularly supposed that it 
was a private affair, belonging exclusively to the people 
of the Thirteen Colonies, and the states that would 
afterwards come into the Union. 

Some fifty years afterwards. President Monroe an- 
nounced that "the soil of the American Continent was 



14 

no longer a subject of colonization by European 
Powers." By this he meant that our Declaration of In- 
dependence was not confined to the people of the 
United States, but extended to the people of the Ameri- 
can Continent. This was as far as the Monroe Doctrine 
went ; a doctrine imperfectly understood by our people, 
and grudgingly respected by European Powers. 

But the world has advanced since the Monroe Doc- 
trine was announced. The divine command "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" has outgrown the 
swaddling clothes of theological dogma, and stands 
forth today a living spirit in the world — a spirit in man, 
which makes him know why it lives, and for what pur- 
pose he lives, a spirit which recognizes the same rights, 
the same purposes in its neighbor — a spirit which de- 
mands that nations keep faith with each other, just as 
individuals must keep with each other. A\ here art 
thy brother's keeper. 

Our Independence now appeared in its true light. It 
may have been the hand of fate that guided the Pilgrim 
Bark across the stormy Atlantic to the rock bound 
coast of New England, but it was the hand of God that 
directed the pen that wrote our Declaration of Independ- 
ence. The words "All men" are not restrictive words. 
They don't mean "some men." "All men are created 
created equal in their right to self government" never 
did mean, was never intended to apply exclusively to 
the people of the Thirteen Colonies, or to the people of 
the American Continent, but extended to. and embraced 
the people of the entire world. 

Our declaration of rights was a declaration of human 
right ; a symbol of self government for the world, con- 
ceived by the same s])irit that actuated Arnold Wink- 
leried in his struggle for Swiss liberty, of Rasseau and 
Lafayette in their struggles for liberty in France, of 
Louis Kossuth for lilierty in Hungaria, the spirit of 
Kusciuszko for liberty in Poland, of Garibaldi for liberty 
in Italy, of Tom Payne and Patrick Henry for libert)^ 
in America. The brotherhood of man, struggling for 
the rights of self government, against military govern- 
ment. 



15 

On the second of April, our President, realizing that 
the Hving spirit that hiy behind our Government, meant 
self g-overnment for mankind, asked a united people to 
"make the world a safe place for democracy." He 
struck the keynote of our national existence, our na- 
tion's ideal. Then, for the first time, was the real spirit 
of our independence known and understood by the 
world. The name "America" was no longer the name of 
some land. It became the name of a living principle: the 
principle of self government for the world. A statue of 
Liberty which enlightens the world, its rays carrying a 
message of love to our neighbors in Europe. To the 
lowly Slavok of Bohemia, the Serb of Hungary and the 
Cossack of Russia, who, seeing its gleam, may take heart 
again, for a new day has dawned in the world. Mili- 
tary Government must give way to the Divine Right 
of self government, and there will be no peace with 
Prussian Autocracy still in the saddle, with power to 
further harm the world. 

America w^ent into this war not in anger, for revenge, 
but for the well deliberated purpose of making the world 
safe for democracy, and yon flag, which is no longer the 
flag of America, but the flag of humanity, the flag that 
has never turned away from moral wrong, will not 
quit this struggle with its task half accomplished. 



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